Anglican and American Locos of Japan

Something for my friend from Japan. 

I fond these very delightful illustrations from Mr. O. S. Nock's Railways Of The World In Color: Railways In The Formative Years: 1851 to 1895; a book which is a somewhat rare find, but is well worth the search and read for the railway enthusiast.

These pictures are of some early steam locomotives during the early days of Japan's railways, which there were many of, before their nationalization in 1906. Information of Japan's railways, other than the famous and world-renowned Shinkansen, is hard to find, likely due to the language barrier. But the variety of steam locomotives that Japan's railways used was certainly fascinating. On the left hand side we see two British-built 4-4-0 express passenger engines. The top one was used to haul the Emperor of Japan's train, and was built by Kitson & Co. of Leeds in 1873 as an 0-6-0 goods engine. It was rebuilt in 1876 as a 4-4-0 at the railway's Kobe Works. It is one of the few instances of a goods engine being converted into a passenger engine. Below is a standard passenger engine used by the Imperial Government Railways of Japan, built in 1876. One couldn't ask for a more English-looking locomotive. Around the turn of the century, however, Japanese railways began to Americanize, and American-built locomotives became more popular as they were more quickly shipped by American builders than their British competitors. The 2-6-0 was built by Rogers of Paterson, New Jersey  in 1897. It had they typically American outside cylinders, a double bogie tender, and working flat slide valves through rocking levers. British influences such as the buffers and screw couplings, and vacuum brakes remained. The 4-4-0 below was built by Schenectady in 1900, adapted to Japanese practice as well, with copper-capped chimney and policed brass dome and sandbox. By the 1920s, Japan starting building her own, more familiar, steam locomotives. 

I do not own this.